Don't Talk
by Belief Among Unrest
Summary: Megumi doesn't see why he can't just let her be, and Yahiro doesn't see why she can't just shut up.


Well. I did the first three last January, and the rest a few days ago. It was surprisingly fun. I had quite a lot of fun writing it. ENJOY, MY DEARS.

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The first time Yahiro told Megumi not to talk he had screamed it; it was the time he had told her to talk. They had been on their first "date," and she had thrown away her sketchpad in a futile attempt to do what he asked so he would stick around. In the end, he had told her to simply shut up so she wouldn't destroy her voice.

She had listened, because she had been concerned for Akira. Akira, who he couldn't seem to forget. She never thought that by trying to take his affections away from her, she would unwillingly set her affections on him.

She was unaware that that would be the beginning of the journey of her life.

The second time he told her not to talk was at Akira's birthday party. He had discovered she was dating Tadashi and had been hurt, but refused to cry. She had cried for him instead, and had yelled at him for being so emotionless. He told her not to strain her voice. For him, she had chosen not to potentially hurt herself.

Although, she thought evilly, she could always throw herself off a roof. If just hurting her voice distressed him, why not hurt everything? But, she thought, on the other hand, I'd probably die. It wasn't worth it if she just wanted to anger the brat.

Somehow, through her affections for him, there was always a voice whispering that he was nothing more than a jerk.

The third time he told her not to speak, Yahiro was coaching her in singing, so she could do well in front of a producer. Even when she said little things, almost whispered them, he told her to be quiet. She remembered being mad at him, briefly, but it would never do to stay mad at Yahiro, no matter how offhanded he was about their whole "relationship."

He may be the jerk she knew him to be, but despite that he was rapidly becoming one of her best friends. She remembered, standing there, singing for the man who could help her become a star like her parents, the sullen boy in the back of the room, watching her with a smile, and she was glad she had someone to support her when she needed it.

The fourth time was a ridiculous occurrence. Megumi had been studying for a test, and he had been sitting by her, looking bored, muttering about how he wanted to be doing something else, somewhere else. She ignored him at first, but he was far too much, so she opened her mouth to tell him to leave. She hadn't even said anything, and he had shoved her eraser into her mouth. She had protested, but he just looked at her with bored eyes and told her not to speak.

He was increasingly growing on her nerves, enough so that she could sometimes ignore her own feelings in favor of being annoyed at him. That day, as he continued to grumble, she eventually stuck an eraser in _his_ mouth, and wrote down that he had to shut up or leave. He looked at her with lidded eyes, smirked, and shut his mouth. Surprised, but relieved, she studied in peace.

Until he started being loud by means not of words. She glared at where he was tapping his foot and clicking pens and whistling, and decided to drag him outside and slam the door in his face. Only then was real peace achieved.

The fifth time was abnormal. She had been at singing rehearsal, and the pink-haired boy was standing in the back of the room, making his presence known just by his bold atmosphere. Her manager was sitting right in front of her, looking very pleased with her performance. Confident, she sang with more courage, closing her eyes. She abruptly opened them when a hand clamped over her mouth, effectively stopping her voice.

"Shut up," he said to her, taking her elbow. "We're leaving."

Her manager had protested, but he had marched off with her, leaving the poor man a bit flustered. Megumi herself was flustered, and once they were outside, she yanked herself from his grasp, demanding he explain himself. He covered her mouth again and demanded she be quiet. Then he had dragged her home, both silent and unhappy, though she didn't know why he was, and made her bake him cookies. She did so angrily, not knowing why she did it at all.

Oh wait, she liked him despite herself.

The sixth time he was kinder to her, because it was her birthday. Jun had been held up in England, where he had been visiting their parents where they were on tour, and the flights had been cancelled due to harsh weather landing in Japan. Ryu had accompanied him, thinking he was needed more with the brother than with the sister. Depressed, Megumi looked out her rainy bedroom window and sighed, resigned to the fact that she would be spending her own birthday alone.

Until _he_ showed up at her front door, a cupcake in one hand and badly wrapped something in the other. Seeing such a sight made her giggle, and she was about to ask him why he was here, but he shushed her.

"It's your birthday, right?" he asked her, obviously already knowing the answer. He gave her the cupcake and fumbled in his coat pocket. Before he could pull whatever it was out, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the rain, closing the dreary world outside. His hair was pasted to his forehead, and he impatiently brushed it aside.

After he had pulled matches out of his pocket, failed to light three, then finally lit the fourth successfully and lit the candle in the cupcake, she made the most hopeful wish ever: _I wish I could just speak once_.

He shoved the wrapped something at her, and she smiled. After opening it, she found it was a plaque of some sort, which read: _Five minutes of vocalizations without being scolded._

Looks like this one might come true, she thought happily.

The seventh time he yelled at her, he really went _all out_. She couldn't remember what she had said—only something about taking a short vacation to Hawaii—but he was furious, by god, _furious_ with her. Yelling and stomping around like a child throwing a tantrum, he looked for the entire world like a deranged madman.

With a bored expression, she calmly threw her sketchpad at him. It hit him in the face, and he yelled more, but when he read it he immediately shut up. She raised an eyebrow at him, crossing her arms. He huffed. "_Fine_. I'll go with you."

She didn't really understand him at all.

The eighth time they were at the beach. Yahiro had seemed fine on their way there, the flight passed in peace, and though he hadn't exactly looked _thrilled_ before, now he just looked pissed. She had been annoyed at how he always dragged her down with his mood, and went swimming.

She was in high spirits when two boys approached her and asked if she wanted to play volleyball with them. Megumi had beamed happily, and nodded. They talked for a few minutes until she felt a hand pulling her by her arm out of the water. Already knowing whom it was, and already angry with him for ruining her good time, she turned to shout at him.

"Don't talk," he said casually, looking normal, which pissed her off even more.

"Hey! Don't tell her not to—" the boys started, but Yahiro's eyes glinted with something pure evil and they immediately swam off, forgetting her completely.

The only thing that rivaled his look was hers. He actually seemed a bit intimidated by hers: irate and murderous, she managed to scream a single word before he had dunked her under the water. When she came back up, spluttering, she hit his chest, yelled that she was sick of him telling her what to do, and stormed off.

His constant cruelty was making it easier for her to feel less affection for him.

The ninth time she didn't speak to him for a week afterwards. He had invited her over, irritated, for recently she had blown him off because she was still upset about the incident in Hawaii, hoping to settle things with her. Of course, with Yahiro that is never easy, especially when he is already angry to begin with.

As soon as she had walked in the door, he was flinging heated words at her, reprimanding her for ignoring him and brushing him aside all the time, making it all out to be _her_ fault. She stood and took it for a moment, letting him get it out. But then, looking at his face, the way he was talking to her, so like all the other times he abused her with words, and suddenly, she realized she really didn't like him anymore. She told him so.

He stopped talking, and was silent for a moment. "You should have written that down," he said quietly. "So you wouldn't have to speak."

She ignored him, and said bluntly that it was extremely simple not to feel anything special towards him when he was just a jerk to her. "Then it's a good thing I never returned those feelings," he said, and not the words, but how casually they were said, hurt her. She took one look in his careless, arrogant face, and slapped him. The she left.

She always knew he was cruel, but not to this extent.

The tenth time was a puzzle she couldn't really solve. He came to her house, evidently drunk, but before she could slam the door on him, he gave her a wretched, "I'm sorry," and she paused. "Let me in?" he asked, and it sounded like he felt he should beg, but didn't want to do so. Slowly, she held the door open for him. He stumbled in.

Sighing, Megumi took his arm and let him lie down on her couch, helped him to remove his jacket, and got him a glass of water. She was still sour at him, but she had enough decency in her to be kind—enough. She asked him what he was doing there.

"Don't talk," he said slowly, covering her mouth with his hand, which he didn't need to do. The brunette raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "When you talk. It's confusing. I don't know what to do. So it's best that you…say nothing at all." He dropped his hand at last, staring at her through drunken eyes that somehow managed to be completely clear. She shook her head, expressing her confusion.

He made an impatient noise. "I can't tell you. Just…don't use your voice. Don't strain it." He paused then, his head down, and she couldn't see his face. "I know you meant what you said," he said quietly. "And what I said in turn was a terrible thing. Forgive me."

She smiled. Stupid Yahiro. She already had.

The eleventh time was at her first concert. Nervous, anxious, she made not a single noise, only wrung her hands and tried to remember how to breathe. He suddenly came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. The knot in her stomach loosened, knowing he was there, but reappeared quickly enough. She opened her mouth to tell him she didn't think she could do it.

"Shut up," he said, not unkindly. "You're going to do fine. Just imagine my face out there on everyone else's."

When she went out on stage, and there were thousands of loud, screaming people standing right in front of her, she closed her eyes and almost ran off the stage. However, when she again opened her eyes and looked over, he was standing right there, watching her. And she realized, she didn't need to imagine his face out there. He was right here, and he believed in her.

She sang. She sang, and she was not afraid. But she didn't see his face, somehow sad and yet happier than he'd ever shown her, listening intently to every note from her mouth.

The twelfth time, he was the one who forced her to speak in the first place. He was ranting about some duty of his or another, pacing angrily and looking flushed, and suddenly he stopped and demanded her opinion. She started to write down that he should just sit and be calm about it, but he told her to put the sketchpad down and speak up.

Surprised, she did, but as soon as she started to speak he told her to be quiet, that she should save her voice. Indignant, and the smallest bit huffy, she quickly shouted out that she was going to use her birthday present. He protested, but she was not to be deterred.

And so, with her five minutes of freedom, she sat him down, calmed him, and gave him some advice. "You're good," he muttered, drained of his fire. "But you have one more minute. What else do you need to say?"

She paused. Then she told him, quite hesitantly, knowing it was a sudden step toward something he wasn't comfortable with, that it was okay to let people in sometimes, friends, people to love, it was okay. And, once in a while, it was okay to let her in too. She was his friend, after all.

"You went a minute over," is all he said when she was done, but his voice sounded funny. She sighed, and went to make some hot chocolate. "And," she paused at the door to the kitchen, "you are my friend. You're my best friend, in fact. That's why I only tell you things, sometimes." She smiled at him.

The thirteenth time was comical. They went out for a casual Saturday in town, and she insisted they buy some ice cream. Without thinking about how it could ruin her happy mood, she commented on how beautiful the ocean was with the sun shining on it. She realized her mistake too late, and the anticipation of a scolding put a damper on her mood right away, but instead if a reprimanding, she felt his hand in hers around her ice cream cone, and he shoved the treat into her face.

She supposed she should be angry at him, she had a rightly so justification, but she just laughed, laughed and laughed, and so did he—until she shoved his cone into his face—then they were hysterical. She thought, in amazement, this is the first time I've ever seen Yahiro laugh so hard.

She continued to giggle as he cleaned his face with napkins, not bothering to clean hers, just eating her smashed ice cream happily, not caring that she was probably adding to the mess on her face.

Megumi nearly dropped her cone when he started to wipe her face too. "You'll get sticky," he said softly, wiping her nose, cheeks, chin, and mouth. She just looked at him through wide eyes and let him touch her.

She still didn't like him, of course not, but it made her really happy that he could be kind like this to her.

The fourteenth time hurt a lot. Not because of his cruelty, in fact, he was very gentle, but because her body hurt too much instead. She had been making tea when he let himself into her house, and when he greeted her she was surprised, and managed to spill the scalding water all down the front of her shirt.

Shrieking, she dropped the pot just as he caught the backs of her legs and spine, running to the bathroom to deposit her in the tub. Fully clothed and whimpering, she tried her hardest not to cry as he turned on the cold water. As it hit her stomach, she sighed in relief, tears still making tracks down her cheeks with the pain and sting.

"You fool," he whispered gently, stroking her smooth hair to comfort her. "You're so clumsy." She tried to apologize, but the inevitable "don't say anything" came up, so she bit her lip and continued to fight tears.

When the pain subsided enough a long while later, she finally stopped biting her lip and opened her eyes; Yahiro looked nervous. "You, um," he started, cheeks tinged pink. "Can you take your shirt off? We should bandage your wound." He looked like he thought she would object to such a statement.

She, however, did what he said easily. He had seen her in a swimsuit before, so why should a bra be any different? It was easy for her, but judging by his face he found it to be scandalous. She might have laughed if it didn't hurt so much. He helped her out of the tub and laid her on her bed, trying not to touch anything that would bring her more pain, or anything he thought he shouldn't touch at all.

"Medicine?" he asked her, and she pointed to a drawer. He found a salve and asked her if he could touch her to put it on. The brunette laughed, once, then made a pained noise while nodding her head. He looked like he was in pain too, then touched the tips of his fingers to her burned skin, gently rubbing the salve into the wounds. She whimpered every once in a while, but he kept on, face bright red and concentrated as he touched the ruined skin above her breast.

"Your bra saved some of your skin," he said lightly, dabbing some more medicine on the more red skin. "So that's good." She asked him if he thought it would scar. He shushed her gently. "Maybe. But we won't know until you've healed."

He stayed with her that night, applying medicine and talking to her, sitting on the edge of her now soaking bed until she fell asleep. She was so glad to have such a loyal friend.

The fifteenth time he had taken Megumi to the doctor's office. He hadn't seen her skin since that night, and was afraid of what he would have to see eventually. However, the doctor said he couldn't be in the room while she examined her.

She came out of the room a while later and smiled at him, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. He asked what was wrong, and she wrote that everything was fine; she was completely healthy and healed. The car ride was silent, and she drove with an expression unreadable. At her house, and unable to take it anymore, he demanded she write down what was wrong. She told him nothing was wrong.

"Shut up, I said write it down," he said, irritated with her sullen expression. She wrote impatiently to him that she couldn't tell him what was wrong, because nothing _was_ wrong, but he didn't believe her. "Show me your stomach," he demanded. Megumi just stared at him, white as a sheet. "Show me!" She didn't move.

Losing patience, he stalked over to her and yanked her shirt up. She didn't resist. His jaw dropped. Her body had scarred, and more severely than he thought it would. The skin was puckered and bumpy, an eerie white color, and seeing it made an awful emotion of pity rise in him.

She whispered that she was hideous, but her eyes were dry. He dropped her shirt and then, unexpectedly, pulled her into a hug. "Shut up," he said into her hair. "You're not hideous." She shook her head. "You're _not_. Don't you…_dare_ think that. Ever. You're perfect just how you are right now, at this exact moment. And if the scars were on your face, you'd be just as perfect. So don't say that; don't even think it."

One tear, one single tear, escaped her eye. But not because of her appearance. Because he was able to say such kind things to her. Because that only hearing them from him made her feel that much better.

The sixteenth time, all the drama had passed, and they were celebrating Halloween together. Yahiro, the poorest sport ever, let himself be dressed in a pirate costume, but not without much complaint and resistance. Only when Megumi, a clever looking rabies-stricken cat, had forced him out of his shirt, he agreed, red faced and shouting at her to get out so he could change.

Satisfied, she let him be so he could humor her with his playing along. When he emerged a moment later, positively adorable, she gushed at him and made him stand still for a picture. He managed a half smile, more exasperation than annoyance by now.

She said he looked cute. He spluttered, blushed harder, and told her quite simply to shut her pie hole. The brunette laughed at him and bounced over, holding up the camera to take a picture of them both together. The camera flashed, but as soon as the picture was taken he was backing away from her, telling her not to come near him so suddenly, and would she please, for the love of god, stop talking all the time. He was tired of shushing her.

It stung a bit, since she thought he had begun to be kinder to her, but she knew it was too much to ask. The doorbell rang then, and she ran off with a bowl of candy, leaving the pink-haired boy red-faced with a hand over his mouth trying to shake her out of his mind.

The seventeenth time they were at the movies, and his reasoning was justified, seeing as she wouldn't stop asking what was going on. He knew it was a confusing movie, but he couldn't keep up with it either, so he told her to be quiet and enjoy the pictures.

The eighteenth time he had told her not to talk, he made her. He had spurred another cruelty upon her, words too harsh to be taken lightly, and she was screaming at him.

"You are unkind," she shouted, and he noticed that it was louder than anything she'd ever said to him. "You are too harsh with your words, and you are careless in their use. You abuse me and you don't even recognize the damage. You leave me unhappy and burdened with the weight your remarks leave behind. You hurt me," she said, quieter now.

He looked a bit stunned, but retaliated immediately. "Stop shouting. You'll just hurt your voice."

"And that!" she cried, sounding wounded. "You yell at me one moment, then you act as if you care. You abuse me, and then try to soothe me. Sometimes I wonder why you bother sticking around when you are obviously displeased."

"Maybe if you didn't anger me—" he started, but she cut him off.

"Like Hawaii!" she exploded. "I was making friends, and you ruined it!"

"'Friends'?" he demanded angrily. "You call those perverts 'friends'? They were just eying you up!"

"So what!" she exclaimed. "At least someone paid me some attention. You were in a mood the whole time."

"Well, if you weren't showing off that much skin, I wouldn't have had a need to! I was _worried_ about you."

"Well you don't need to be anymore, because I'm ruined," she said, more quiet but somehow more tortured. "I won't be wearing things like that anymore, because they only show something hideous. Such undesirable skin should not be—"

She cut off as he abruptly kissed her. He kissed her with the fire in which he yelled at her, and she was breathless because of it.

"_I_ find you desirable, you stupid girl," he said, blushing madly, once he let her go. "I adore every part of you, down to your scars, and I hate it when other guys look at you like I do because it makes me want to hurt them for thinking of you like that when I know even I shouldn't. I love everything about you, and you're too good for me, and I definitely do not deserve you, but I want you, and it makes me angry because you're not something that could ever be mine. And I realized I wanted you too late, because by then I had already pushed your affections away."

Megumi stood there, stunned, her hand still on his on her cheek from when he kissed her. "Is that why you're always telling me to shut up?" she asked him.

"Yes. Because…when you talk," he told her, red with embarrassment, "it gets harder to not love you."

She just smiled at him. "Oh, Yahiro. Don't try to stop it then." And she kissed him again.

It didn't stop at eighteen, however; in fact, it surpassed a thousand. But those were the ones that mattered, for they are the ones they remember. They are the ones that started their lives together, and they are the ones they think of when one cannot bear the other another moment.

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Booyah. Enjoy? Please, my dears, will you give some input? I THANK YOUR GENEROSITY.


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